Months of Meryl: Heartburn (1986)
Thursday, March 29, 2018 at 8:00PM John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep.
#13 — Rachel Samstad, a New York food writer who is seduced and betrayed by a tomcat D.C. columnist.
MATTHEW: The celebrated run of 80s-era films that cemented Meryl Streep as a master among screen actors is so overwhelmingly remembered for its cadre of self-sacrificing period heroines that it was only inevitable that Streep’s two comedic outings would recede into the background. Based on its critical reception alone, Streep’s 1989 Roseanne Barr match-up She-Devil, which we’ll get around to discussing soon, may very well deserve to be remembered as a curious career outlier — that is, if it deserves to be remembered at all. But what about Heartburn, the all-around more prestigious comic vehicle? The project marked Streep’s first reunion with her Silkwood director Mike Nichols and that film’s co-writer Nora Ephron, from whose thinly-veiled best-seller the film was adapted...
The first edition of Ephron's best-sellerPublished in 1983, Ephron’s debut novel infamously dramatized the breakdown of her four-year marriage to Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein, whose reputation as a serial philanderer was never entirely remedied following Ephron’s scathing depiction of the tumultuous affair that blew apart their domestic bliss. An engrossing and peppery read, Heartburn made Ephron a household name, but it also saddled her with an unwanted reputation, i.e. that of the vindictive literary oversharer shamelessly exploiting her private circumstances for public sympathy. Three years later, Ephron’s calamity received the cinematic treatment from a slew of tony filmmakers whose combined talents and unimpeachable credentials couldn’t deter a backlash that all but mirrored the novel’s sexist reception. (Roger Ebert’s review, a low point in this seminal critic’s career, chided Ephron for hewing too closely to her own life and lacking the “distance and perspective that good comedy needs.”)
There’s an entire other piece to be written about the now-muted critical consensus around Ephron and the hypocrisy of condemning women writers for tackling their personal lives on the page. But let’s focus on Heartburn, which marks the first occasion since 1979’s The Seduction of Joe Tynan in which Streep played for laughs, without necessarily skimping on the suffering.
In Heartburn, Streep is the Ephron surrogate Rachel Samstad, a successful food journalist who tosses aside her career and rushes into marriage and motherhood with Mark Forman, a seductive newsman played by Jack Nicholson, a perfectly-cast, last-minute replacement for the totally unimaginable Mandy Patinkin, who was fired after a day’s work for his lack of chemistry with Streep. When their marriage implodes after Mark falls for a willowy D.C. socialite, Rachel goes into a tailspin and is forced to decide whether to commit to an uncommitted man or strike out on her own.
What’s perhaps most surprising about Streep’s performance is that she’s not exactly playing Ephron, or at least the version of Ephron that was best-known at the time. We see little of the irony-laden, cobralike confidence that Ephron evinced with unruffled ease in her public appearances. Instead, Streep is unmistakably and credibly inhabiting a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, fleshing out the sort of lucid, finicky, and frazzled personality that might have been the point of focus within a madcap Pedro Almodóvar melee. Ephron’s romantic travails might have actually provided an ideal story template for Almodóvar, who was flirting with the possibility of going Hollywood roughly around the time of Heartburn’s release. Although capably if not exceptionally helmed by Nichols, Heartburn could have easily been enlivened by Almodóvar’s giddy urge for envelope-pushing, boldly outrageous color palettes, and affectionately attentive eye for all of his characters. But I bring up Almodóvar not purely to air a retroactive fantasy, but to consider what Streep might have accomplished in the hands of riskier collaborators, particularly in her comedies. Streep’s performance is far and away the best thing Heartburn has to offer, but there’s an inescapable sense of mutual comfort in this collaboration that overrides the zestier, more erratic components of her character and prohibits high-wire leaps. Were they playing it too safe?
JOHN: In the early passages of Heartburn, I admittedly fell into the gap between Streep’s Rachel Samstad and Nora Ephron herself, doling out mental demerits for what I perceived as a too casual and un-Ephron-like interpretation of “Rachel.” Perhaps because this is the first time I am familiar with the biographical figure Streep is playing, I actually found Rachel’s earnest charm somewhat off-putting and offering little of Ephron’s sardonic and often deadpan comedic timing. For this, I laid some unfair blame on Streep, but maybe this just signals that Ephron wasn’t best suited to adapt her own material? Again, Nichols proves exceptionally capable of pushing, relaxing, shooting, dressing, and cutting Streep in such a way that shows her off as no director really had (or has), but, as you've suggested, is Heartburn too comfortable? Then again, somewhere between Rachel’s extended wedding stall-out and her attempts to name “baby” songs while eating pizza in bed with Nicholson, I almost forgot about Nora Ephron entirely and instead grew to admire and sometimes even love this familiar yet delightful Streep creation.
If nothing else, Heartburn is a trojan horse for some choice Streep line-readings, who works her magic with the uneven comic screenplay. Whether it’s the the way she lowers her voice to admit, “My husband had hamsters,” or the completely serious way she cries, “You can’t get a decent bagel in Washington D.C.!” while hiding from her wedding, or the way she barks then quickly retreats during a phone call with her contractor (“Where the fuck have you been...? Oh. I’m so sorry. Cancer?”), Streep tosses off great lines without opting for the kind of showy theatrics that could have easily tipped her Rachel into a self-destructive, showboating parody of Ephron herself.
Even in quieter moments — watching dust fly out of her couch, dying from boredom while stuck between two arguing men at a dinner party, or, in her best scene, realizing that her husband might be cheating in a zoom-in close-up while getting her hair done — Streep lends a grounded, naturalistic element to a film that’s often content having its cast play the comic tone as outright farce. Though I prefer the playful and vulnerable Streep of Joe Tynan, Heartburn reads as an early point in Streep’s career where her charisma and confidence signal the turns her star persona will later make and dispel those undue criticisms of her being an artificial or coreless actress. When Streep arrives onscreen, pale as snow and making eyes at Nicholson, she carries an assured and magnetic charge, that of an actress fully in tune with her powers.
Which is not to say that Streep never gets caught with a broad line-reading, it’s just that she indulges less than anyone else in Heartburn. I’d wager that Streep is too incongruous a screen presence to play the romantic opposite to Jack Nicholson, whose carefree chill makes her seem affected and whose manic outbursts inevitably shirk Streep’s own capacity for volcanic outrage. It doesn’t help that their relationship is streamlined and abridged in such a way that Heartburn often feels like a character study disguised as a two-handed rom-com. “Can we get someone else to do it?” Streep hilariously cries out en-route to deliver her first newborn, and sure, I briefly fantasized about Stockard Channing’s Rachel Samstad (a formidable, playful but no-nonsense match to Nicholson) or even Diane Keaton’s (although Streep is doing her own neurotic variation, the real-deal queen of comic anxiety might have truly rocked this part). But who cares? When you’re Meryl Streep, you make it work, because that’s what you do; you’re a pro at recovering iffy projects, transforming incomplete characters on the page to multi-dimensional beings on celluloid, and, of course, pieing philanderers in the face.
Catherine O'Hara in one of her first movie roles
MATTHEW: Streep definitely excels most in Rachel’s introspective scene. In the more outrightly comedic set-ups she occasionally sacrifices specificity based on the presumed demands of the genre. (I’m thinking, in particular, of Streep’s outsized reactions to Nicholson during his kitchen-door freakout and all of those pursed-lip, bug-eyed looks she throws at Kevin Spacey’s burglar on the 1 train.) Ephron’s tart writing is undone by her inclination towards momentary shtick, which keeps lifting Streep out of moods and moments before she can really hit the sweet spot of a scene, plopping her down into scenarios (like the robbery at Rachel’s group therapy session or the motif of an imagined television host narrativizing Rachel’s misery) that are scripted and played for laughs but reveal very little of Rachel’s actual character.
But there are inspired moments. It’s a sidelong pleasure to watch Streep squirm and magnetize underneath Nicholson’s wolfish gaze during an opening meet-cute at the wedding of mutual friends. The “baby song” scene you mentioned before is a real keeper, not least because Streep and Nicholson utterly nail the bewilderingly intimate spousal conversation that seems to exist on an entirely different wavelength from one’s normal interactions and can be uncomfortable, even unnerving, to the outside spectator. To his credit, Nicholson isn’t just a prop for Ephron’s biting send-up, but a believably flawed and not wholly irredeemable operator who keeps Streep alert and on her toes at every instance. His diminished presence, post-discovery, is necessary to the film’s narrative but really a loss to the film’s momentum, which cannot help but drag once his screwball spark is pushed to the periphery. Streep recovers that energy in key moments, like a stroll through the supermarket with Catherine O’Hara’s Southern busybody in which Rachel concocts some malicious lies about her romantic rival; in this scene, Streep’s highly-charged, comically-pliable outrage comes closest to achieving the Almodóvar-adjacent movie that Heartburn could have been.
And yet, it’s the poignant moments of the performance that I find myself admiring most. A late-film conversation with a jeweler that unearths a discovery meant to re-pique Rachel’s latent rage is instead adeptly underplayed by Streep, who deepens the scene by hinting at her character’s humiliation while primarily focusing on her courtesy, summoning up a cheery, smiling, and shrugging demeanor whose perceptible cracks say more about the emotional limits of deceiving oneself than any monologue ever could. The pie-to-the-face that follows that encounter is a truly delicious climax but also another feat of shrewd understatement. It’s one of the rare and seminal moments in Heartburn in which Ephron’s messy structure and Nichols’ penchant for long, unbroken takes yield some loose, spontaneous choices from Streep, whose sense of figuring out a scene in the moment — feeling its particulars and taking the temperature of a room while seemingly living inside her own head — works quite well for a character in the midst of figuring out her path in life. By localizing Heartburn within Rachel’s headspace and ensuring that this unlikely heroine’s sadness and hard-won resilience are discernible above all else, Streep pays ultimate tribute to a talent who, to quote another of the actress’ dearly-departed pals, took her broken heart and made it into art.
JOHN: “I never expected to love it so much. It’s like you expand. You have so much more love to give,” Rachel tells her pal Stockard Channing about giving birth to her first baby, played by her then-infant daughter Mamie. Though she had played mothers before and will play them continually again, Streep’s performance in Heartburn reminded me of that sizable component of her persona as a maternal figure, both on and offscreen.
Moviegoers probably don’t often recall that Streep once carefully selected projects that would accommodate time for and proximity to her young family. Falling in Love and Heartburn, two films with small but present question-marks about Streep’s involvement in the material, both shot in New York, where she and Don and their children lived until the early 90s. When filming Out of Africa, Streep moved her family to Kenya for the summer, and when the shooting schedule ran over a month and into September, Streep recalls being devastated by not being able to be home for her children’s first month of school. The list of rejected roles Streep must have pushed aside to be close to her kids in their formative years is probably longer than "Infinite Jest". It’s surprising that Mamie is even in the film at all, as Streep is fiercely protective of her family’s right to privacy; but note how Mamie is credited here as “Natalie Stern,” an alias Streep used to protect Mamie’s anonymity. Streep’s mother and brother are also credited as party guests, the only such instance in her filmography.
Streep, Nicholson and baby Mamie!
From Joanna Kramer to Sophie Zawistowski, Rachel to Lindy, Francesca to Kate Gulden, from Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw to Ricki Randazzo, Streep’s role as a mother foregrounds a good chunk of her performances, and when considering her tremendous faculties for authentic emotional responses, her generosity with scene-partners, her commitment to modeling respect and kindness for the next generation of actresses, Streep’s maternal proclivities make perfect sense. Rachel Samstat might not be in the pantheon of Meryl as Mother performances, but Heartburn made me feel, above all else, the sheer joy and comfort of Streep’s bountiful love, for her characters, her castmates, and for her on and offscreen families. When Rachel records her newborn’s first word, I completely believed that “da-da” was the very first thing that came out of that baby’s mouth, and I would not be shocked to learn if the scene were an actual, spontaneous account of Mamie’s real-life first utterance. Streep’s ecstatic reaction is like a warm embrace, like some activation of my muscle memory after watching a home-video and feeling that jubilation replayed in your senses once again. Nora Ephron would find this sentence nauseating, but I’ll confess that, for me, Meryl Streep shows, above all else, from role to role, on celluloid and in the flesh, what it means and feels like to love.
Reader, are you nauseous? Does your heart burn or swell for Heartburn? Or are you still thinking of songs with “baby” in the title?
Reader Comments (13)
Very nice piece. I think it’s true that Streep has an uncanny gift for making real characters and being an iconic screen presence. I still don’t know how she does this consistently with so many different characters. This film has some nice moments but I don’t recall it all successfully coming together, for many reasons you cite.
Tom Ford -- i dont recall ANYTHING so I read this with a kind of curiousity since I know I have seen this movie but cannot remember anything. Not one thing. from it. Which is not true of Streep's other movies (I've seen all of her 80s movies and remember scenes and lines and moments from all of them EXCEPT this one)
This is what I would call a well-contemplated and analysed piece of writing. Kudos!
I would have much preferred Julie Kavner in the lead role. This movie was horribly miscast.
I'll always remember the line reading where Streep tells the butcher to put some sausage in the ground beef she's ordering. I don't know why I find it so funny. Trying to damn her husband by slipping an "unclean" animal product into his food chain? But I loved it. This was the film that made me think she needed to do more comedy.
I saw this a few years ago so some things are still fresh in my mind...but the one thing that really stands out is the sex scene. It was all under the covers but it was very steamy (Meryl's orgasm was almost too real).
How I wish I liked this film - that cast! That director!! Nora!!!
But it's all so unbearably sour and Streep and Nicholson have never been such a drag. Only O'Hara and the Carly Simon soundtrack emerge unscathed.
"I didn't expect to love it so much."
Well, neither did I. Apart from She-Devil this is actually my 2nd favorite movie of her 80's turns. It's definitely more a Comedy than Drama. Maybe that's why I like it so much? It wasn't designed like that maybe, but....
So many great funny moments and quotes... The Scene with her watching TV and the narrator tells her specific Situation is so hilarious. Or the dad: "You want monogamy? Marry a swan!"
Aaawww and Mamie. Makes it extra cute.
And I really do love her with Nicholson here. Way better chemestry than in thier folowing film "Ironweed". (though watching that was just reeeaaaally hard).
I know the film still has many flaws, but sometimes you just love it so much that you simply don't care.
So yeah, I just love this movie and would have given Meryl a Comedy Globe nod without a blink.
I know this is not very good, but I love Heartburn. Must have seen this one 10 times. Meryl is so loose and natural and just really damn casual, even when she's being high-strung, which is a lot. Some of the lines are killer, and she definitely kills. She seems to use her body in a completely different way--she lurches, she plods, but she never falls. This is a Meryl we haven't seen before or since. Just a delight. And that pie scene--simply delicious verbal and actual choreography.
PS Catherine O'Hara steals every moment she's in this movie. YES.
I did not dislike the film, but I also did not love it. It just seemed it would be better with the actors, directors , and theme ... it just did not come together.
Wonderful conclusion as to why Meryl has continued to endure our fascination and adoration. Such a well written piece. I love the movie but seems to not know exactly what it wants to be. Streep and Nicholson have such great chemistry!
Very nicely-written piece. But man, I thought Heartburn was thoroughly mediocre and Streep & Nicholson just did not have the chemistry necessary to make things gel. Like Nathaniel, I can't remember it very well, but I do recall my boredom.
This is such a weird one for me. I *love* the book and I've read it least a dozen times. I can never get past the first half hour of this movie. I find it so slow and plodding.
This is of no fault to Streep or Nicholson. The book was so hilarious because of its breezy, first-person narration that read like a friend telling you everything that happened, and maybe there was no way to get that to translate as a film.
Nora Ephron's son did an HBO documentary about her last year ("Everything is Copy"), and there is very interesting stuff about how the book and movie were received and what Carl Bernstein felt about it. There was a clause in the divorce agreement that the movie could freely depict him as a lousy husband, but could not in any way suggest that he was a lousy father.